Stop and search must change: A call for fair policing in Black communities

2 March 2025, 09:39

Stop and search has long been a point of some conjecture regarding its effectiveness as a police tool in reducing crime across London.

Both the Casey review and the IOPC report have extensively commented on the disproportionate use of stop and search across Black communities in London.

For many years, since my own childhood, Black communities have felt the pressure and overt scrutiny of being over policed and underserved by the MET police, leaving many Black Londoners, including our children, feeling traumatised, singled out, spoken to, and treated poorly, as second-class citizens, treated worse than other Londoners.

What is stop and search designed to do? Black communities understand the importance of safer streets, safer communities, crime detection and reduction, however the problem has been its poor use, with very little consideration of impact on those communities and individuals most targeted, with decisions to over police Black communities often fuelled by pre-conceived ideas about Black Londoners.

Clearly something is wrong with this description of the lived experiences of many Black people in London of ‘modern policing’, something must change in the Met, so the experiences of Black children when stopped by the police, do not continue to replicate the negative experiences of Black elders.

The Stop and search charter is a tangible opportunity to change the approach used by the Met Police towards Black Londoners, an opportunity to ensure all Londoners experience policing in an equitable and unbiased way, an opportunity to address inequality and racism in policing, an opportunity to re-build trust and confidence in a police force for all Londoners, where trust and confidence has been systematically eroded through decades of discriminatory practices.

I’m committed through my role as the CEO of Rights and Equalities in Newham, through wider engagement and participation as the chair of both the independent advisory group and community monitoring group to work alongside the Met Police, providing a critical friend function, to support the implementation of the stop and search charter throughout the Met, and in so doing, reducing the negative incidents of stop and search for Black Londoners.

It's vitally important that the stop and search charter is successful, that its impact on the manner in which stop and search is implemented is forever changed.

It’s important because the future of our children and their experiences of policing depends on rebuilding the reputation of the MPS right across the diverse communities in London but specifically within the Black communities.

Stop and search is one of the most favoured tools the MPS utilise, they are wedded to its use and haven’t been forthcoming with suggestions for other mechanisms to increase community safety and reduce crime.

I’m at a loss as to why there is a reluctance to reach into the toolbox and pluck out a new and innovative mechanism for reducing crime and increasing community safety across London.

Young people and community leaders who have contributed to the Stop and search charter framework, expect the charter to be successful. It has been co-produced by young people and community leaders, they, as do I, have an expectation that the MPS are as committed to the success of the charter as Black communities are across London.

The biggest challenge lies in changing the organisational culture of the MPS, which if left unchecked and unchallenged, has the capacity to derail any initiative that seeks to level the playing field and create a more equitable experience of policing across Black communities in London.

I am committed to working collaboratively with the MPS, children, young people, Black communities, government and grassroots Black-led organisations, to push forward to improve stop and search, to critically question and scrutinise the activities of the MPS and to determine if stop and search is a valid tool for a modern police force or a tool that should be consigned to the history books.

Paul Leslie is the CEO of Rights & Equalities in Newham

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